On the night of 1st February, when the snow was falling heavily, the German guns fiercely shelled the Russian trenches between the Warsaw road and the Bzura River. When it was supposed that the wire entanglements had been blown into a million fragments and the trenches utterly wrecked, 140,000 Germans, including Prussian Guards, advanced in masses, sometimes ten and sometimes twenty-two deep. They were mown down by Russian shot and shell; nevertheless they carried the first line of trenches, and by the evening of the 2nd February had pushed the Russians back to the crest of a ridge behind the town of Borzymov. On Wednesday the Germans looked like succeeding; but by means of the railways which you see to the north and to the south of Borzymov, and also by means of the roads, the Grand Duke hurried up reinforcements from Warsaw. They marched through the driving snow, and arrived on the scene of battle late on Thursday. By this time the Germans had been checked. They had pushed across the crest of the ridge behind Borzymov, had advanced five miles along the railway, and had very nearly broken through the Russian front. [Illustration: The Battle on the Rawka.] The fighting was terribly fierce, and the Germans lost heavily. Around Borzymov the slaughter was so great that the ground was cumbered with German dead, and the survivors used the bodies of their fallen comrades to build up defences. The woods to the south of the Bolimov-Warsaw road were also strewn with dead. By 8th February the Germans had been flung back to the banks of the Rawka, and the Russians had crossed the river at Dachova. The German loss cannot have been less than 20,000 men. The great attempt had failed, and it was now clear that Warsaw could not be captured by a frontal attack. As soon as von Hindenburg saw that the Bzura-Rawka lines were too strong for him, he was ready with a new plan. He was now about to try a flank attack. Look carefully at the map on the next page and notice the railways which meet in the Polish capital. By these railways alone can a Russian army maintain itself westward of the Vistula. In front of the main railway (A A) from Warsaw to Petrograd you see a river line--that of the Niemen and the Narev. Von Hindenburg's plan was to push out from East Prussia, carry the river line, cut the railway, and thus force the Russians to retire from Warsaw, which would then fall into his hands. Meanwhile the Austrians, on the Russian left wing, were to drive back Brussilov, relieve Przemysl, and try to recapture Lemberg. If these operations should succeed, the Russians would be forced back from the line of the Vistula to the river Bug, and it would take them a year's fighting to recover the lost ground.